


we would enter the wilderness together

by Eisoj5



Series: different ever after: The Sisters Brothers (2018) works [4]
Category: The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Amputation, Depression, Eventually Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Period-Typical Racism, San Francisco, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2019-10-12 19:54:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17473967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: May to December, 1851.[On an irregular posting schedule in summer 2019.]





	1. May

The faint light of the stars shimmering into their spartan boarding room at the relay station was barely enough to see by when Morris came slowly awake. It was the middle of the night, or so he thought; outside the window there was not even a hint of dawn. 

He did not know what had woken him. The next stage was not due until the morning, so it had not been that, with its attendant frenzy of drivers and horses being exchanged. Through the fog of sleep, Morris dimly recalled that there were other occupants of the neighboring rooms who might have made some sound, though there were no snores shaking the thin walls at present. And it was not as if _Warm_ snored; Morris had discovered that with more than a little relief when they had set out together from Wolf Creek. 

He turned his head. Across the room, the starlight picked out the rectangular frame of Warm's bed, tucked in under the windowsill. Like the one Morris presently found himself in, it was little more than a sturdy cot, and he had had to give Warm one of his sadly dingy pillows, so that Warm would stop putting his lumpy bag to that purpose, but—

—Warm was not in the bed. 

Alarmed, Morris started upright, thoughts stampeding through his mind like a herd of wild mustangs. He had unburdened his secrets to Warm fully during their flight from Jacksonville, and received again the benevolence of Warm's trust and friendship, but it was entirely possible that Warm might yet bolt—

A clang from the unlit hearth made Morris jump, and he put one hand to the gun he kept under his pillow, straining to see the cause of the noise. Warm made a peculiar, ill-defined silhouette, crouched awkwardly in front of the fireplace, craning his neck and peering up into the chimney. The quilt from his bed was draped about his shoulders like a cloak, in place of his usual coat, and he held the fire iron as if he were brandishing it at something coming down the chimney. 

Morris eased his hand away from his pistol slowly. “Hermann? What on earth are you doing?” 

Even in the darkness, Warm’s smile was bright as a muzzle flash. “I hoped I could fix the damper, so we might have a fire in here after all, but it's quite stuck.” He put the fire iron down and drew a fold of his quilt about him, unable to disguise the shivering of his slight frame, and as Morris’s worry dissipated back into the haze of his half-drowsy state, he could only arrive at one conclusion. 

“Leave it alone and come to bed,” he said. 

Warm said, sounding puzzled, “John, I’m sorry I woke you—”

“ _My_ bed. Get your pillow,” Morris directed him, and pushed aside a corner of his own blankets. “It will keep us both—warmer,” he added, unsure why he was stating the obvious, except that Warm had not moved from the hearth and must be staring at him. “I prefer the side closer to the door.” 

“I know,” Warm said, and stood. He went over to retrieve the pillow Morris had given him and then padded back across the short distance to Morris’s bed in his stocking feet. “Is there really room for both of us?” 

“So long as you do not kick,” Morris said. 

Warm gave a small laugh and climbed in with him, tossing his quilt haphazardly over them both. Underneath the quilt, Warm had been still almost fully dressed, in contrast to Morris’s single layer of a nightshirt; he must have been terribly cold by the window. “I won’t shove you out onto the floor,” he promised, turning onto his side so that he presented his back to Morris. 

“I appreciate that,” Morris said, dryly. “Good night, Hermann.” 

“Good night.” 

He sat there a moment longer, looking at Warm’s shadowy shape. His moods and postures had become very familiar to Morris over the course of their travels together, especially during that strange and terrible night in Jacksonville, and it was curiously pleasant to observe him relaxed and at rest, even as indistinct a form as he made under the blankets. 

Morris straightened the extra quilt atop them and lay down again. The bed was _not_ large enough for him to cede much space to Warm without feeling like he was about to go over the edge, and he thought that perhaps it would be difficult to fall back asleep. But Warm’s presence—and the additional quilt—did abate the chill, and it was not long before Morris drifted off once more. 

In the morning, Morris was conscious first that his backside, covered only in his nightshirt, was exposed almost completely to the cold. The quilts had migrated throughout the night and come to rest tucked around Warm’s body, and Morris had done the same, in his own instinctive quest for heat. But despite the volume of blankets now nearly cocooning Warm, there was simply not enough padding between them to prevent Warm from noticing what Morris realized with dawning dismay: Morris’s _cock_ was pressed firmly against him. 

_If_ Warm was awake.

Morris dared to open his eyes—he had to squint as the sunlight flooded his senses, and then he saw that Warm _was_ awake, and lay calmly regarding Morris's gradual emergence into wakefulness. 

A tremor passed through Morris's body, one that he knew Warm could not avoid sensing, but it was not from the chill; he could feel heat suffusing every part of him, including his wayward cock, and in his chagrin, Morris blurted, “Dear God, Hermann, I—I did not intend—” and tried to roll away. 

Warm's mouth curved, generously, and he put one hand out of the covers to hold Morris fast. “It's all right, John.”

“I cannot help but add to the list of offenses I have committed against you,” Morris said, attempting to reposition himself so that he did not touch Warm’s person. His heart was racing. “Please—forgive me.”

Warm would not let him budge; he was stronger than Morris had presumed. “There's nothing to forgive. It's perfectly natural, and—and I'm not offended.” His smile caught his eyes alight. Morris's cock twitched as Warm shifted away—no, he was turning over so that they lay face to face. He lowered his eyelids and gazed up through his lashes at Morris, a little coy. “I thought you might be growing fond of me.” 

“How is that?” Morris managed, weakly. 

Warm reached his hand up—with some hesitation, as if he thought Morris still might try to pull back—and brushed Morris’s hair out of his face. “You listen to me talk,” he said, as casually as if they were at breakfast, not lying so intimately together. His hand came to rest on Morris’s cheek. “And you don’t just nod along like you’re _pretending_ to listen. Your gaze might be on the horizon, or your journal, the parts of your gun that you were cleaning last night at dinner, but you hear every word.” 

Warm was trembling slightly. Morris held very still; he felt as if they stood on a steep precipice, waiting for the gentlest push to send them tumbling over. He had come to such a turning point before, and it seemed only fitting that it was Warm who had brought him to it once more. But he could not determine how to take the next step—

“It isn’t just common courtesy, either,” Warm added, softly. His mouth quirked up under his mustache. “You didn’t listen to the man who sold you my horse.” 

Morris drew back a fraction. “You deserve more than common courtesy,” he said, frowning, and Warm kissed him. 

Despite the rising ardor Morris had seen in Warm’s eyes, the tenderness of his words, the fact that they lay so closely together—it still came as something of a surprise, and at first he did not know how to react, though his errant cock brushed against Warm’s leg. Warm broke the kiss, his brow furrowing and the look in his eyes beginning to dull, and he opened his mouth—

“There is nothing to forgive,” Morris said, quickly, and went at him in a rush. They went over the side of the bed onto the floor in a tangle, Warm’s sudden burst of laughter muffled by the quilts collapsing over him. Morris flailed through the blankets and pulled him out as though he were rescuing a man drowning; fell back against the bed with Warm smiling and— _warm_ in his arms. The floorboards beneath him were _not_ , though, and as Warm twisted in his embrace to press another kiss to his mouth, Morris got his feet under him and bodily hauled them both onto the bed. 

Warm was as fervent in his physical passions as he was his ambitions, pressing Morris down and promptly wrapping a hand around his cock. Morris arched up, groaning into Warm’s mouth. He could _feel_ Warm smiling against his lips, and he caught at Warm’s back, sliding his hands beneath the thin cotton of Warm’s shirt. Warm sighed, going pliant under his touch, but it was not enough; Morris worked his right hand out and sought at the buttons of Warm’s pants. 

The angle when he took Warm’s length into his hand was awkward, although by the way Warm gasped and shuddered at each tentative stroke, he did not seem to mind. A bewildering thrill passed through Morris at the thought that Warm must have gone without true companionship for a long time—that he had taken to _Morris_ , of all people, to exercise his affections—and he thrust helplessly into Warm’s fist and spilled. 

Warm followed suit moments later, with a ragged cry, and made as if to collapse onto the bed, but of course there was no more room than there had been during the night, and Morris was taking up the whole of it. He braced himself over Morris on his hands, instead, and looked down at him, flushed slightly and still panting. His clothes were utterly disheveled, and for lack of anything to say, Morris reached up to straighten his shirt; there was nothing to be done about his pants. 

“You shoved me out onto the floor,” Warm said, affecting a wounded tone, and Morris looked up from Warm’s buttons with some amusement. 

“Tomorrow night, I shall have to arrange for a larger bed,” he said, and Warm smiled, and kissed him again. 

*


	2. June: San Francisco

After weeks on the trail, riding through the wide open spaces of the Territory, and passing through the rough and tumble collections of tents calling themselves towns by dint of having someone selling food and drink out of the back of a wagon, by the time they finally reached San Francisco, Warm was all too ready to take Morris up on the prospect of an _actual_ bed. 

It was not so much that Warm minded sleeping on the ground; Morris shared his blankets quite readily now, although he took great pains to ensure that he retained them throughout the night. Nor was it that they had not had the opportunity. There had been a perfectly reasonable hotel in Mayfield, and Warm had expected Morris to arrange for them to lodge there, even after Mayfield herself had dismissed Warm’s pitch and declined to invest in their project. But Morris had seen something dangerous in Mayfield’s eyes that Warm had failed to notice, though Warm _had_ recognized that she was a formidable woman, and insisted that they slip away quietly. They had passed that night without a campfire, and Warm had felt a considerable tension in Morris’s body as they lay next to each other without embracing, in order that Morris might keep a watch. 

That also had not been so terrible. Warm sincerely appreciated Morris’s newfound determination to preserve his safety, and had stayed up a portion of the night to keep him company. They had talked, quietly, about the state of affairs that could produce such people like Mayfield and the Commodore, and whether their power could ever be bent to less tyrannical ends. It was the sort of conversation that made Warm like Morris even more, and sorry that Morris had not permitted him to continue demonstrating his affections in full since they had left the relay station. 

In San Francisco, however, there was an _abundance_ of hotels, with beds and more importantly for their mutual purposes, baths and laundries, and Warm had been hopeful that Morris would seek lodging straightaway. But instead, after they had stabled their horses, Morris had taken out his pocket watch, frowned at the time it told, and insisted that they proceed directly to the project bank before it closed to withdraw the necessary funds from Warm’s account. 

Whereupon Warm found himself observing Morris in his element once more. Morris possessed a gift for communication that had always eluded Warm, and he was deploying it with the banking clerk precisely as he had with the horse seller, as though there were no difference whatsoever between the two men’s respective stations. Which, Warm reflected, was exactly what he hoped to achieve in Dallas, though perhaps Morris _could_ show the clerk a bit more consideration, seeing as how the man was responsible for counting out—

—a _significantly_ more sizeable stack of bills than Warm had believed his account had held. 

He stepped up to the counter and beckoned Morris aside. “John, there must be some mistake,” Warm murmured urgently. “I forwarded _some_ money, but even with interest, this can’t be right.” 

“Concerning you, I have made but one error,” Morris said, a little dryly, and patted Warm’s arm. “They are funds which I had my solicitor wire ahead. I am your primary investor.”

“But—John, I didn’t ask Mayfield for half as much as that,” Warm protested. 

Morris smiled at him. “We are partners now, and I intend to see your plan through to success.” The clerk finished counting out Morris's money, and slid it all across the counter. “Now, how shall we spend this together?” 

Warm opened and closed his mouth like a fish stranded on the shore, feeling just as desperate for air. Morris was handling a _thousand_ dollars—no, it had to be _more_ —as if it were a few coins, and he was proposing that it belonged to—

He made a decision, and turned to the clerk. “Sir, where is the nicest hotel in the city?” 

The clerk was substantially more polite than he had been initially, now that it had been made clear that what Morris had just withdrawn was to be spent for Warm's benefit. “You’ll want the St. Francis, gentlemen. At the corner of Clay and DuPont.” 

“Thank you,” Warm said, and slung his bag over his shoulder. 

Morris's mouth was twitching toward a smile again as they stepped out into the busy street. “I see your objections to my investment have fallen away quite swiftly,” he said, donning his hat and craning his neck to look for a path forward. 

Warm shrugged, and followed closely on Morris's heels; he was adept at navigating through crowds on his own, but there were still more advantages to having Morris at his side or in the lead, as it were. “You promised that you would arrange for a bed, didn't you? I'm just holding you to it.” 

“Ah,” Morris said, and Warm's heart could not help but thrill at the note of fondness in that single word. “Yes, Hermann, of course.” 

But even after they had secured a room at the St. Francis—for what the hotel manager assured Morris was, in fact, a very good price compared to the other so-called fine establishments—Morris _still_ did not take Warm to bed, saying that he wanted to wash up, and then they would go out into the city again for dinner. 

“Dinner,” Warm echoed. He put one hand on the bed; the sheets were clean and well starched beneath his palm.

“I am _tired_ of eating hard biscuits and pickled vegetables out of cans,” Morris said. “Aren't you?” He was removing his shirt to exchange it for a fresh one, and Warm thought he would rather like to see how Morris looked spread out on the sheets, with the lamplight shining on his fair skin. 

“Hermann?” Morris splashed water on his face and looked up so that their eyes met in the mirror. He wiped the water droplets out of his beard with a small towel. “I espied a promising restaurant on our way here.” 

It seemed there was to be no dissuading him from dinner first. “All right,” Warm said, suppressing a sigh, and went to look for a comb and a clean shirt in his bag. 

The restaurant Morris had discovered was unusual for its temperance, and Warm briefly wondered how Morris had managed to divine that element of his past in the course of their acquaintance; it wasn't as if he had abstained during their meals together, or refused the glass Mayfield had courteously poured. Despite that, however, a good several dozen people were sat around them, dressed as Warm was in their best clothes, and the spacious room echoed to the rafters with their conversation. It did seem odd, though, that there were no tables with more than two—

“We are agreed that this is a considerable improvement over opening another can of beans?” Morris said over his menu, interrupting Warm's thoughts. 

Warm looked down at his own menu. Listed there were four different roasts, five puddings, and—

“They serve _five_ kinds of _cake,”_ he said, astonished.

“ _And_ twelve varieties of pie.” 

Warm smiled at him across the table. “John, it's going to be well nigh impossible to go _back_ to beans and hard biscuits after this, you know.” 

Morris lit his cigar and sat back in his chair, beaming at Warm; he was in a better mood than Warm thought he had ever seen him. “Then I think I shall have to have the ice cream.”

Dinner was very pleasant. Morris did not seem to mind the lack of spirits in the least, polishing off glasses of ginger beer and remarking on the freshness of everything; the cooks in the various wagon trains Warm had encountered had by and large done their best, but there were too many ingredients that just would not keep. 

Warm was in the middle of saying as much, when the ice cream came. Morris insisted that it was far too rich for him to eat alone, and put half of it into a dish for Warm, and then after Warm had expressed his enjoyment, Morris said, “Surely this would be the _most_ difficult to procure of our supplies.” He paused, and his face took on a thoughtful cast, though his blue eyes sparkled with some mischief. “Unless—” 

“Unless what?”

“I have heard it said that cooking is simply a matter of chemistry,” Morris said, lightly. 

Warm snorted. “I would think my attempts these past few weeks would've convinced you otherwise.” 

“On the trail,” Morris said, waving the hand that held the cigar. A curl of smoke ascended ceiling-ward in a silvery spiral. “Where fires burn too hot, or not at all, and we run out of one ingredient faster than another—the sugar vanishes more quickly than the flour. I believe it is a shopkeeper's trick, to augur our return.” 

“You have unbalanced the equation,” Warm said, amused. “How many purposes does sugar serve, compared to flour?” 

“It is certainly abundant in this establishment,” Morris rejoined, and sought another spoonful of ice cream. “ _Could_ you do it? Bring ice cream out into the wilderness?”

Warm thought for a moment. He had seen the churns before, of course; they were hand-cranked now like butter churns, though there was more significance to the inclusion of a metal container inside the former, for the sake of freezing, perhaps. “The problem is the ice,” he said. “Otherwise, I should expect that it could be made to work along the same principles of agitation as the butter churned in the bottom of a wagon, as it bumps along the trail.” 

“There, that is scientifically reasoned,” Morris said, teasing. 

“And you will keep me in fresh strawberries, to complement the cream?” Warm asked, indicating the jewel-like fruits in his dish. 

Morris looked at him across the table, and though his tone was equally jovial, Warm could not mistake the genuine feeling in his eyes. “If that is what you desire, Hermann, then you shall have it.” 

Warm held his gaze. “You know my desire,” he said, low, and for the first time since they had arrived in San Francisco, he had the pleasure of watching Morris's usual equanimity crack, evidenced by the hasty swallow Morris took of his ice cream, the faint blush that passed over his cheeks. 

“All—all in good time,” Morris managed, but he did beckon the waiter for the check. 

On their way out of the restaurant, Warm bumped shoulders with one of a pair of young women entering. They were dressed in what Warm presumed were the latest fashions, giggling and holding hands, altogether unconcerned that Warm might have given offense, and it reminded Warm that he _had_ only observed couples seated around them. Mostly men and women together, of course, and the few pairs consisting of members of the same sex like he and Morris could easily have been two friends enjoying each other's company, but Warm doubted it. 

Warm caught up to where Morris waited for him on the edge of the street, eyeing the mud with familiar distaste, and they started in the direction of the St. Francis together. Not a block away, Morris noticed a general store through a narrow alley, and to Warm’s very _slight_ frustration, insisted on making a stop there before returning to the hotel. Warm bought a newspaper while he tarried outside, and his eye landed on a prettily-worded ad for the very restaurant Morris had just treated him to _: for lovers with their sweethearts and husbands with their better-halves._

He was still smiling a little foolishly down at the newspaper when Morris came out of the general store with his purchases and nodded for them to continue their stroll. Warm folded the paper so that the ad was plainly visible on top, and swatted at Morris so he could read it. 

“You know you hardly have to _court_ me, don't you? This isn't high society back East, and I'm not some sort of flower of surpassing virtue—”

Morris was redder than ever as he looked up from the ad, but he burst out laughing, and slung his free arm about Warm's shoulders. “What kind of metaphor is that?” 

Warm grinned at him, helplessly; it did his heart a world of good to see Morris so free and happy. “I don't know, you're the man of letters,” he said as they came into the hotel, which set Morris off again. 

He sobered rapidly once Warm unlocked the door to their room, busying himself with his bag while Warm went about unlacing his boots. Warm finally had them off and fell backwards onto the bed with a sigh that felt as if it emanated from the newly bare soles of his feet. It was a challenge to unbutton his vest and unfasten his suspenders, lying supine and watching Morris instead of his fingers, but eventually he got down to his shirt, and—and Morris had scarcely begun to undress, and was instead sitting at the vanity with his journal. 

“John?” Warm frowned, and manfully resisted the urge to throw a sock at his head. 

“Hermann, I shall be with you in a moment,” Morris said, sounding slightly distracted. He glanced over his shoulder at Warm, and his gaze sharpened, before he hurriedly dropped his eyes back down to his journal. “I—allow me to finish the bookkeeping, all right? One night of extravagance won’t set us back, but I do—” He looked up again. “I do wish to—to court you, as you put it.” 

Warm stared at him. 

“And I thought it would be—” Morris rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Proper, perhaps, to make a full accounting to myself before I joined you, as I might not ever want to leave the bed again once I was in it.” 

“It is a very nice bed,” Warm said, touched. Morris made a face at him, so he added, generously, “All right, finish your numbers.” 

“Thank you,” Morris said, and bent his head to his task. 

Warm watched Morris’s pencil scratching against the paper for another minute, and then he took off his pants. 

Although the motion must have caught Morris’s attention, he did not look up. “Hermann,” he said, mock-reprovingly. 

“Merely making myself comfortable,” Warm replied, gathering the pillows from what would be Morris’s side of the bed and piling them between his back and the headboard. Warm took his cock in hand, idly, but Morris turned his head at the sound of Warm’s breath hitching in his throat as he stroked himself to hardness, and Warm remembered too late that Morris was _very_ quick and agile—

—as the chair overturned, and Morris was suddenly on the bed, kneeling over Warm’s legs and kissing his neck. 

“Done with your calculations?” Warm panted, reaching up and fumbling at Morris’s clothes, and Morris nipped his ear. “I wouldn’t want you to become distracted from your—” He broke off with a gasp as Morris’s hand found his cock, and Morris smiled wickedly at him, giving him a couple of quick tugs before he slid back _off_ the bed. 

“ _John,”_ Warm protested. But Morris was finally, _finally_ stripping out of his clothes, turning away to lay them neatly aside, and when he turned back, he was holding a small glass bottle of oil. “Oh,” Warm said, and licked his lips. His heart beat faster as Morris climbed up, never taking his lovely eyes from Warm’s face, and poured some of the oil into his palm. 

“Will you permit me?” Morris asked, softly. 

Warm nodded, and lay back upon the pillows, letting Morris arrange him how he wished, and then he was crying out and clutching at Morris's shoulders as he was breached. Morris held fast, looking into Warm's eyes with some concern, and Warm gasped out, “I intend to see your plan through—”

“Dear Hermann,” Morris said, breathlessly, and pressed forward his suit. It felt like fire consumed him from within; he burned in Morris's arms, alive to every rough searing scrape of Morris's beard against his skin, the tension in his body as he drove into Warm. 

Morris’s mouth tasted like ginger and his cigar and ice cream, and Warm thought deliriously that he did not want Morris to brush his teeth, if he would not taste like this afterwards. He reached up to grasp the edge of the rattling headboard to brace himself as Morris gave another forceful thrust, groaning with his release. 

The thin wall shook, and from the other side of it Warm could hear muffled shouting and someone pounding their fist. Morris groaned again, this time in embarrassment, slid out of him carefully, and fell over onto his back, chuckling and covering his face with one hand. 

Ignoring their neighbor’s irritation, Warm rolled on his side—hesitantly, uncertain what additional discomfort Morris’s endeavors might have produced, and traced his hand along Morris’s arm and shoulder, up into his long hair. Morris cast a glance down at Warm’s own cock, and though he had to be spent, he promptly sat up and wordlessly drew Warm into his lap, so that his chest rose and fell against Warm’s back. 

“ _Your_ plan for tonight has not yet come to success,” Morris murmured in Warm’s ear. Warm shivered and squirmed at the sensation of Morris’s hand on his cock, and rested his head on Morris’s shoulder. Morris was more skillful at this angle than he had been their previous time together, stroking Warm the precise way he must bring himself off, and his hand was still wonderfully slick with oil, and Warm shuddered and came. 

Morris kissed the curve of Warm’s shoulder as he lay panting against him, and there was a smile in his voice when he spoke next. “I fear I have stolen your virtue, you poor flower.” 

Warm laughed and elbowed his partner—his _better-half_. 

He had never been happier. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy slightly belated Blu-Ray/DVD release day and also [the film won some awards!](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sisters-brothers-takes-top-prize-at-lumiere-awards-france-1182332) So that's cool. :) 
> 
> If you would like to see the menu for Winn's Fountain Head, it can be found [here](http://www.theamericanmenu.com/2013/01/fresh-eggs-in-california_23.html). 
> 
> You may have noticed the /8 changed back to a /? because I am apparently not as good at estimating as I thought I was, for these fics. June has another part to come. >:D
> 
> Thanks to morag for continuing to keep track of the pants :)


	3. June: Folsom Lake

The afternoon sun was hot on Morris's closed eyelids as he floated on his back in the lake a safe distance from the dam and the chemical waters below, happiness flowing through him like the current. Even the few abiding problems—the possibility of the Sisters brothers in pursuit, the damned near maddening itching of his legs—had little effect on his mood. 

He could not recall the last time he had felt like this, on and on for days— _weeks_ —but there was no doubting the wellspring of his contentment. There were certainly many men who would chafe at ceaseless companionship on the long journey from San Francisco, preferring to worry at their ideas like a dog at a bone in silence. But Morris no longer counted himself among those men. He had in Warm a kindred spirit, whose thoughts were complement to his own; whose philosophies of the world bore the refined polish of stones tumbled in a river. 

In truth, Morris considered, perhaps he was being a bit vain about his intellectual faculties in comparison, for it was Warm's genius that had led them here. He had merely provided the necessary funds and applied some persuasive skill. And it was not as if Warm lacked the latter entirely; most evenings since they had left San Francisco, Morris had set aside his journal at a touch or a kiss upon his brow, and once, a look of such surpassing tenderness that he had felt almost guilty for chancing upon it. 

They had not made love on every such occasion. Enjoyable as it was to while away the hours with Warm riding alongside, their travel was still physically taxing, and more often than not Warm wanted simply to draw Morris's attention to something in the present moment: an owl's soft hooting, a pair of deer stepping silently out of the trees, or bats waking from their sleep and gliding forth into the dusk. 

The night before they had begun work on the dam, Morris had lain with his head in Warm's lap as Warm traced among the stars with one hand and gently combed through Morris’s hair with the other. He had recounted myths about the pattern Morris recognized as the Northern Cross, but which he called the Swan, stories of men who were honored for their devotion—to a brother in one tale, to a lost lover in another—and transformed to dwell forever among the stars. Morris had been quite lulled by Warm's mellifluous voice, to the point of nearly forgetting the true purpose of their sojourn by the lake; he had drifted off to sleep in Warm’s embrace half-dreaming of a life lingering there together. 

The next night, though, the gold shone from the depths of the river in new, uncharted constellations, and every smile Warm had given him was tinged with a triumphant fervor. Morris had thrilled to each clasp of their hands when Warm helped him keep his footing on the riverbed, as if he was a young man again, the blood rushing in his ears. And when the golden glow faded and Warm had decided that they should cease their work, Morris had flung his shovel to the sand and seized Warm by the arms, calling him _marvelous_ and _ingenious,_ and had kissed his dear surprised face between more words of that effusiveness. 

At a splash, Morris opened his eyes, expecting to discover Warm swimming nearby, his kind and expressive eyes fixed adroitly upon Morris’s nakedness in the water. But he could not see promptly; he had floated too long in reverie, the entirety of his environment had gone hazy and blue with the afterimage of his own eyelids, and no amount of squinting could make the world resolve into the sky, lake, or trees—or his friend. 

“Hermann?” he called, rubbing his eyes. 

“Here,” Warm responded. 

Morris turned his head, and Warm came into focus at the water’s edge clad only in his pants, his red suspenders hanging loose about his hips, in what would have been a prospector’s posture if not for the fact that he had absolutely no need to pan in the traditional fashion. He puzzled over Warm’s hunched shape and odd dress although he was well accustomed to seeing Warm even less clothed by now, and then he spied two of Warm’s shirts draped over a tree branch behind him like sodden flags. Warm stood, wringing his remaining shirt out in his hands and arranging it over the same branch to dry, a glimpse of domesticity in the wilderness—and for a moment Morris saw the trees around him cleared for a little cabin, with a proper swoop of a clothesline and a woodpile out-of-doors; a chimney built from worn gray river rocks, and all the other markings of a home—

He ducked under the water to cool his face, envisioning just how they would proceed. Warm did not strike him as a hunter, but they could fish in the lake, and grow—beans, he supposed, and whatever experimental crops Warm wanted, for the gold would keep them well supplied with what they could not coax from the land. They would need intellectual nourishment, too; books, naturally, and they could send away for a telescope and all manner of modern scientific equipment. 

Morris broke the surface of the water again, and found Warm looking quizzically at him from the shore. 

“Did you say something?” Warm asked. 

“I thought—” Morris stopped, struck by the way the leaves cast dappled shadows across Warm's face, like the flickering candlelight on the night Warm had described his revolutionary dream. Morris's was a peaceful, pleasant daydream, certainly, but he had abandoned just such a solitary, if rather more itinerant existence in order to follow Warm’s ambitions. By all rights, Warm’s ideas belonged out in the world, and he with them, not sequestered away for Morris’s own selfish aims.

He swallowed, and said, nonsensically, “I have shirts you may borrow, if yours aren’t dry when you want them.” 

Warm slid his pants off of his narrow hips and came fully out of the trees to join him in the water, and Morris swallowed again as the sun suffused Warm’s bare skin with an amber glow. His gaze went to Warm’s legs; the skin was reddened and blistering, not unlike his own, and Warm breathed a faint sigh of relief as he waded deeper. 

“Thank you,” Warm said. “I can pay for a real laundry when we go back to San Francisco.” He smiled at Morris as he drew within arm’s reach. “Or I can buy you new shirts, if you would like.” 

Morris lifted one hand out of the water to shrug. In truth, he had not given any thought to returning to San Francisco; the next step had been the lake in which he was presently submerged, and then Dallas after that. “You needn't trouble yourself about it, Hermann. By now you _must_ know that I'm more than happy to share what I have with you. No recompense is necessary.” 

Warm swirled his hands about him, the small waves he made cresting and breaking on Morris's body. “You are too kind, as always, John.” A corner of his mouth quirked up further under his mustache, and his dark eyes danced in the sunlight coruscating off of the water. “Is there anything else you would like to share with me?”

Morris snorted. “You are incorrigible,” he said, but he pushed off of the sandy bottom of the lake and swam a little with the current buoying him into Warm's waiting arms. Warm tilted his head back to be kissed, and Morris set his private yearnings aside and obliged, once more at ease in the water and Warm’s embrace. 

There was no chance that Warm would set aside their partnership—in all senses of the word—once they went to Dallas. It would come out well enough in the end.

*

No sooner had Morris convinced himself of that, however, than everything began to go wrong, beginning with Warm’s discovery of the Sisters brothers encamped on their claim and ending with the arrival of the strangers Morris had injudiciously shot at downriver and with whom they were presently embattled. 

Furious with himself for allowing his consternation to supersede reason, and frightened—there were _more_ men shooting at them from the trees—Morris sought cover behind the boulder, his eyes darting from Warm’s alarmed face to the indistinct forms of their assailants. Charlie and Eli shouted at them from where they lay bound in the grass, but Morris could hear only the sharp pops of gunfire, the whistle of a bullet too close for comfort—

Warm gave a short, pained cry, and Morris jerked around, a blade of fresh fear sliding into his heart at the sight of Warm slumped against the rock. “Hermann!” He could not make out Warm’s reply— _“Hermann?”_

“I—I’m all right,” came Warm’s answer, but his voice shook as it never had before as he pushed himself vertical, and Morris stared at—at the _blood_ staining the left-hand sleeve of Warm’s shirt in frozen horror. 

“Let us help you, Warm!” Eli yelled, and then Charlie: “Give us the keys you _fucking idiots!_ You don’t stand a fucking chance!”

Warm had dropped his gun to clutch at his wounded arm, and his eyes were bright with pain. “John, we’re badly outnumbered—” 

“Your _arm—”_

“The bullet passed through, but we will both be shot worse, _if—”_

He had the right of it. Morris fumbled the keys out of the pocket of his waistcoat and made ready to run, but Warm snatched them from him and dashed through the grass to the Sisters. Morris wanted to see what they did, afraid for Warm if they showed their true colors and seized him, but their attackers continued to fire on his concealing boulder—

“Here,” Warm said, breathlessly, and thrust their sole rifle at Morris. His eyes were wide, the whites showing all around, but he took up his gun and his position just as Charlie and Eli scrambled in beside Morris, checking their— _their guns,_ which Warm must have given back, as trusting as ever, and for the span of a breath, Morris waited for it to all go even more horribly wrong— 

“You think it’s Mayfield’s raccoons?” Charlie asked.

“Sure looks like them,” Eli said, prompting Charlie to peer over the top of the boulder, shouting some sort of attempt at dissuading the trappers while he grinned maniacally, but Morris only half-listened; blood dripped from Warm’s fingers onto the stone—

“—get it?”

“Yes,” Warm responded, and Morris realized to his shock that Charlie had ordered them to provide covering fire while he and Eli fought on their behalf; he took up his gun and shot, and then he watched apprehensively as dead men fell out of the woods and into the river. 

The gunfire went silent after another minute, and Morris drew a breath. He glanced at Warm as he rose to one knee, preparing to go and find out what had happened—

—but Warm lay insensible in the grass, and Morris's heart leapt into his throat. He fell rather than crawled to Warm's side; there was a good deal of blood soaking his shirt sleeve now, and Morris could not stop his hands shaking as he felt for Warm's pulse at his neck and when he found that slow but sure under his fingertips, Warm's wrist. 

The trees rustled, and Morris heard cautious footfalls approaching, although he could not see the red of Charlie's shirt nor the furs of the men who had come into their camp. He searched frantically for his gun in the dirt and threw himself over Warm's limp body; he would not let anyone take Warm without a fight, no matter how brief, and he brought the muzzle up quaking badly—

“ _That's_ a fine fucking thank-you,” Charlie said, coming into view. He held his gun pointed at Morris almost lazily, as though it would take barely a moment’s thought to kill him. Morris glared, but it was rarely worth arguing with Charlie, and especially not when Warm still lay badly hurt beneath him. 

“Charlie,” Eli said, reprovingly. He, at least, had holstered his pistol, and stood looking down at Morris with some real concern. “Warm fainted?”

Relief flooded him—it was Eli, after all, and he had never been a cruel man—and Morris dropped his gun in the grass. “Yes,” he said, and as Charlie huffed and finally put his own weapon away, “Help me get him up.”

“It doesn't look too bad,” Eli remarked, as they carried Warm back to the tent between them. Morris raised his eyebrows at the blood, and Eli added, freeing one hand to point to the inside of his own armpit, “He'd have died already, if it had hit the artery, I mean.” 

“Is that something you learned from all the men you have killed?” It came out with a terseness and a venom Morris could not truly spare, not when Charlie followed so closely and curiously behind. 

But Eli just shrugged. “Brings the end on quick, if a man's run out of bullets.” His eyes went past Morris to Charlie, as if he mentioned it to needle at his brother, but Charlie only stepped around them to lift the tent flap aside with ill graciousness. 

They settled Warm on the cot, and Morris knelt beside him, debating how best to cut away the sleeve and go about inspecting and addressing the injury without causing Warm further pain; his eyelids fluttered, and a soft sound that could have been Morris's name escaped his lips on a breath, as if he were only dreaming. 

A ripple of worry passed through Morris. He glanced up to see Eli taking in the state of their single shared tent, but he assured himself that Eli had not heard Warm's exhalation, and that he would view the arrangement of their belongings as that of two traveling companions and nothing more. 

“What now, Morris?” Eli asked. 

Morris's mouth twisted in a frown. “I don't know,” he answered honestly. “If we are not going to try to kill each other anymore, then it—it's up to Warm what we should do.” He gave Eli a grudging nod. “He may well want to thank you for your assistance.”

“By sharing his magic formula,” Charlie said, expectantly. 

Morris did not like that idea very much; it was too near their original goal, and he resolved to hide Warm's journal at the first opportunity which presented itself. “Perhaps. In the meantime, his wound must be seen to, and unless you gentlemen have acquired some medical skill since our last acquaintance, your efforts could be better spent elsewhere.” 

Eli nodded. “We'll go move our camp down here,” he said, and ushered his brother out of the tent before he could raise any objection. Morris immediately got up to conceal Warm's journal under the pillow, and to search for scissors and alcohol to cleanse Warm's wound. He returned with those things and another of the shirts he had thought to lend Warm, and found him awake and struggling to sit up. 

“Oh, for goodness sake, Hermann,” Morris said, appalled, but he dropped the supplies on the cot and put an arm behind Warm's shoulders to help him fully upright. Warm held his left arm close to his chest and his mouth was pulled taut, but he looked in no danger of collapsing again once Morris let go and knelt in front of him. 

“They said Mayfield was dead,” Warm said, as Morris began to cut his bloodied shirt sleeve apart, more lucid and calm than Morris would have expected given the circumstances, but it was _Warm_ , after all, who had sat watching the stars and shadows as he was bound to a chair awaiting torture and death. 

“Yes,” Morris said. “They are almost certainly the ones that did the deed.” He looked at Warm askance. “You aren't _sorry_ for it, after she sent these other men after us?” A touch of the old self-loathing crept into his tone, for he had been the one to instigate the battle by shooting at the trappers: “Violence begetting violence?” He cut through the last half-inch of linen, carefully pulled it free, and then he dared a second glance up at Warm’s face. 

Tears stood in Warm’s lambent eyes, but he made no move to wipe them away. “Of course I wish it hadn't come to that,” he said. He reached his right hand out to Morris; saw that his long elegant fingers were stained crimson and let it fall back to his side, his shoulders sagging. His mouth trembled. “I'm beginning to think that you are the only good thing that has come out of this whole venture.” 

Morris began, “Hermann,” and then he did not know what to say next. He had grown more or less accustomed to Warm's habit of laying himself bare body and soul at every turn, but his own regrets and reticent nature made him recoil from it while Warm bled under his hands.

Thus there was no easy solace to give as he removed his belt for a far less pleasant reason than several recent occasions had given him cause to. “This will hurt,” he said, softly, and picked up the bottle of whiskey. Warm gave a quick nod, and then he squeezed his eyes shut as Morris poured the liquid over the bullet wound. He accepted the bottle from Morris and drank a healthy swig, for all that he did not often imbibe; took up Morris's belt and bit down on the leather as Morris proceeded to wind strips of cloth torn from his shirt around his arm for a dressing. He held steady for Morris to finish the bandage, and even permitted Morris to tie a sling about his neck to prevent doing himself further injury, but his breath came in shallow harsh pants, and when Morris finally stepped back he was crying outright, tears glistening on his cheeks. 

“Oh, my dear,” Morris said, miserably, and carefully gathered Warm into the curve of his arm, mindful of the bandage already beginning to redden. 

Warm shuddered in waves that broke over and over against Morris's side, and Morris pressed a kiss to his soft black hair just as Eli pushed the tent flap open, saying, “Lucky thing I kept the morphine—”

Morris's breath caught. He lifted his eyes slowly, dreading the distaste coloring Eli's usual hangdog expression, the scorn and derision sure to curl Charlie's lip at their intimacy, beyond the kind of comfort any man might offer to another injured so. He had left his gun somewhere; regardless, physical threats were clearly beyond him, and he would have to set about convincing—

“How is Warm?” Eli let the flap fall behind him and set the morphine bottle on the little desk in a casual manner, like he perceived nothing out of the ordinary. 

Morris felt as if the ground beneath his feet tilted, and sought to regain his equilibrium, or at least ascertain where they stood. “Where is Charlie?”

“Cursing at the horses,” Eli said. 

Warm said to him, a bit muffled in Morris's waistcoat, “I was dreadfully unhappy.” 

“I should imagine so, seeing as you were shot,” Eli replied. He pushed his hat back on his head and studied them both. “I take it you haven't had time to think about what you plan to do with us.”

“No, of course not,” Morris said, at the same time Warm raised his head and said, “Yes, but—” 

Morris drew back slightly to look at his face. “You have?”

“It was either that or think about how upset you must be,” Warm said, gently. He clung to Morris a moment longer, breathing unsteadily, and then he seemed to will himself to sit back properly on the cot; Morris thought he resembled a character from a fairytale, with one brown and bandaged arm out of his shirt and the other encased inside a billowing white sleeve, as if he had not quite completed a transformation. “But Morris and I are partners, and we should discuss my proposal before I present it to you.” 

“Partners,” Eli echoed, curiously, and then, “All right.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I'll keep Charlie from bothering you.” 

Morris crossed the tent as Eli slipped out again and caught up the morphine bottle in his hand; turned to give it to Warm and was surprised at his responding grimace. “John, let me keep my head? I shouldn't like to be in a fog while we establish a new arrangement with them.”

“You are _injured_ ,” Morris said, astonished, and then the rest came pouring out in a torrent: “It is a wonder that you are coherent, much less _conscious_ , and if it were up to me alone, we would be headed to—to San Francisco or Sacramento or another town with a damned _doctor_ instead of whatever it is you're planning!” He thrust the morphine at Warm. “But you will say we should bring them into the fold now, because _they_ did what _I_ could not, to protect you, and therefore if there is any role remaining for me to play in our partnership, I insist that it is to safeguard your health and well-being.” 

In the face of his intemperate outburst, Warm gazed up at him through his lashes like a startled deer peering through the trees, though there was no chance of him bolting. “You _are_ upset,” he murmured. 

“I—” Morris made a helpless gesture. “It is _my_ fault you were wounded, Hermann, and I must—”

“Make amends? We are _partners,_ and no—no recompense is necessary.” Through the tear-stains a smile drifted across his face, pain making a ghost of it before it could relight his eyes. He reached out for the bottle in Morris's grasp and drank, his mouth twisting at the taste, and then he said, “But I do like you looking after me,” as though Morris was merely ensuring that he was comfortable in bed, rather than concerned for his mortal life. “Before I lose consciousness or coherency, as you say, shall we make a plan for how to proceed with the men waiting impatiently outside?”

Morris blinked at him. 

Warm added, indicating his arm with a mournful moue, “You will have to write it down for me.”

“My suggestion, although I know you won’t agree, is to simply send them away with our thanks and an agreement that we shall have disappeared from the world,” Morris said, as he went and retrieved his journal and a pencil. “I don’t trust them, Hermann.” 

“ _I_ know you don’t trustin the essential goodness of mankind, but you hardly need to. People _change._ ” Warm’s eyes were wide and guileless. “Look, they didn’t even kill us.” 

Morris huffed a wry laugh. “That does recommend them.” 

Warm’s answering smile, when it came, was less strained; the drug was beginning to take effect. “So I propose to offer them the chance to demonstrate that they have, in truth, quit the Commodore. Let them come and prospect with us, in a new place down the river. They should turn over half of what they pull, to our company, and then they may have the rest.” 

“Or?”

Warm said, “Or?”

“They may be accustomed to life in the Territory, but I cannot see Charlie Sisters doing the kind of tedious work that we have,” Morris said. 

Warm shrugged; winced, and Morris’s hand went out to him instinctively. He took it in his own and frowned over the flecks of blood caught in the dark hairs on the back of it. “Then, if they decide to leave, we pay their expenses for coming all this way. Plus something extra, so they _agree_ to your idea that we should disappear.” 

Morris said, very dryly, “Have you memorized the price of an ounce of gold, and devised a system of weights to measure our finds while I wasn’t looking, or will you give over a handful of nuggets and hope that they call it square?” 

“Probably the latter. It isn’t as if we can’t find more, now—”

Morris gripped Warm’s hand tight and tried to make him look him in the eye. “ _Hermann._ If Eli and Charlie leave—if you do not insist on further obligation to them—then we take our horses and ride in the opposite direction, as fast as we can, for a _doctor.”_

“I’m _fine,”_ Warm insisted; his pupils had constricted more than was normal for the afternoon light in their tent, and his words had begun to drift together like they were leaves collecting in an eddy. “I have you, don’t I? Sharing your worldly possessions, binding up my wounds, warding off men who want to kill me—it’s good of you to see to all of that.” He lifted Morris’s hand and brushed a kiss over the knuckles. “I did prefer being courted _,_ though.” 

Morris felt much the same. 

*

Warm slept through the remainder of the afternoon, waking only when the evening sky darkened and Morris came to see if he could come and take a little dinner. The Sisters had received the scrap of paper with Warm's proposal to consider and otherwise kept a distance from Morris—Eli’s doing, for which he was glad, as he was on tenterhooks with Warm abed, and was sure to let Charlie provoke him into a fight—and went to pull the dead men out of the water downstream, going through their soaked clothes to salvage knives and useful trinkets before setting a pyre and burning their bodies. 

Morris had put his own energies to sorting through his and Warm’s belongings as well, setting aside the cleanest cloths for more bandages and packing up the rest. Regardless whether Eli and Charlie joined on with the company, or took payment from what he and Warm had already prospected, they were going to have to leave the lakeside camp behind. He was uncertain which direction the Sisters would fall. There was plenty of gold on hand with which to satisfy the most avaricious of men, but Morris suspected that the Commodore and their long quest had heightened their curiosity about Warm’s formula; Charlie in particular kept an eagle’s eye on Morris’s comings and goings with their gear. 

Around the fire, after Morris had watched Warm eat a meager helping of biscuits and very little stew, his instincts about the Sisters’ interests proved to be correct. Eli was politely solicitous of Warm’s fitness to continue on, but Charlie seemed to think taking a bullet in the arm was all in a day’s work, and that if Eli’s horse could manage with whatever grievous injury had befallen it, so could Warm, particularly if he was taking _their_ medicine. 

As for which: if Morris had thought Warm quite bare-faced about his affection before, he had not counted on the effects of the drug. Warm did not go so far as to embrace him, as he had done while they were alone; while he sat on the ground explaining the phalanstery society—he had declined the camp-stool, saying that he had a touch of dizziness and doubted his balance—he leaned his head against Morris’s _leg,_ like a cat asking to be petted. 

In reflex, Morris had almost put his hand down to stroke Warm’s hair, and feigned that he bent to scratch his afflicted skin instead, prompting Warm to expound on the caustic properties of the formula, and the precautions he deemed necessary to take when next they went into the chemical waters. But Charlie did not notice their closeness, and Eli did not care, and so long as Warm did not _completely_ forget himself under the influence of the morphine, it was actually a relief to be able to grant him some small physical comfort, and Morris let his hand come to rest on the back of Warm’s neck, under the pretense of adjusting the knot of his sling. 

Later, though, Morris slipped out of their tent to relieve himself, and heard Charlie and Eli talking in their blankets by the fire; he was no eavesdropper except when his work called for it in pursuit of some rascal or another, but his lingering mistrust was roused nonetheless when his own name crossed Charlie’s lips, and he went around behind a tree and put his back to it to listen. 

“They are close, Charlie,” Eli said, patiently. 

Charlie made a dismissive noise. “Whoever thought that fastidious, prudish son of a bitch could have _made friends_ —”

“You really are oblivious,” Eli said. 

“What?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” 

Morris could practically hear the wheels turning in Charlie’s head as he mulled that over. His hands clenched into fists, and he calculated how quickly he could get Warm up and away from here before—

“Oh,” Charlie said. He gave a low, surprised chuckle. _“Oh.”_

Eli sighed. “I shouldn’t have let on. Don’t be crass about it; Morris is sensitive.” 

“No wonder he wanted us dead,” Charlie mused. “We wrecked his little lovers’ nest—”

“Charlie—”

“What? You can’t expect me not to say _anything_.” 

“Warm’s _hurt._ You saw how he was about that. It’d be like poking a mama bear about her cub.”

“Have you forgotten I killed that bear while you were passed out in the forest?”

“No, of course not. Just—don’t, Charlie. To keep the truce.” 

“Fine.” Charlie snorted. “Imagine _kissing_ Morris? With that beard?”

“ _Jesus,_ Charlie—”

It was a very childish thing for Charlie to have fixated on, and he would be insufferable, but he posed no real threat to them. Morris let out a breath and crept back to the tent as they bickered; kissed Warm on his soft slack mouth very carefully, and went to sleep. 

*

He continued believing that Charlie could cause them no harm all through the next day, and the next. Charlie followed him alone to swim and wash up, where they argued about the phalanstery society and whether Warm was anything more than a two-bit grifter with a silver tongue. Morris quibbled with the metaphor, as gold was obviously more apt, and anyway Warm _was_ —but Charlie said nothing about any other purposes to which Warm’s tongue might be put. 

Warm himself complained very little about his injury and after Morris forbade him to put forth any effort beyond directing their dam-building from the river’s edge, worked even less. He could not write with his dominant hand restricted by the sling, and drew in the sand with a stick grasped awkwardly in his right; Morris thought he was making calculations, but whatever Warm had etched onto the earth was wiped away by the time he came out of the river for a noonday meal. 

He vanished into the forest when Morris went back into the water with Charlie to shore up weak points in the dam. Morris could not help but look for him, suddenly worried. It had been one thing for Warm to go off while they were alone by the lake, in search of wild mushrooms or following a bird-song; he had seemed perfectly sober and cogent during lunch, but Morris did not know for certain if that remained the case. 

“Warm went after Eli to water the horses,” Charlie said. 

“I wondered when you might decide to say something stupid,” Morris muttered, resigned. 

Charlie fitted another stick in place in the dam. “I was only saying—” 

“It wasn’t _what_ you said, but _how_ you—” Morris broke off; he was being absurd, allowing himself to be baited with an empty hook. 

“I was only observing the behavior of the other two men in our party, my brother and your—” Charlie let the pause dangle in the air to be filled. 

Morris stared at the interleaved sticks in the dam, sighed, and then looked up at Charlie’s insinuating smirk. “Call him what you like, but I _will_ hit you if it is something crude.” 

Charlie chuckled and let something fall out of his hand into the water with a splash. “ _Maurice._ I thought you didn’t care what I think.”

“I don’t care what you think of _me,”_ Morris countered. “But you are in no position to judge the likes of _him_.”

“Why, because I’m not smart enough?” 

“Yes,” Morris said, flatly. 

“And you _are,”_ Charlie said. 

Morris shrugged. “At least enough to understand and believe in Warm’s philosophy, which is more than I can say for you.” 

“The philosophy that’s going to lead all these people to Dallas.” Charlie propped his elbow on a stick that jutted from the dam and rested his chin on his hand, affecting a thoughtful air. “What will you do, Morris, when you get there and Warm makes _friends_ with everyone? In the spirit of true democracy and _sharing?_ ” 

Morris rounded on him. “Has your _puerile_ brain gone and perverted Warm’s _good_ and _just_ ideals—”

Charlie’s hands flew up; he was laughing. “Christ, your fucking _face—”_

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” Morris demanded. “All this—this mockery; you take _nothing_ seriously, you ruin—you don’t care about anything or anyone—”

“Hey, I care,” Charlie protested. 

Morris huffed dismissively.

“I _do,”_ Charlie said. He looked put out. “I took care of Eli. Ever since we were kids.”

“You hardly show it,” Morris said. 

“Well, we’re _brothers,_ we can’t go around petting and cuddling like _some_ people,” Charlie said, but there was surprisingly little derision in his tone. He put his back to the dam for a minute, watching the water settling around their boots, and then he said, “Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“What do you mean by that?” 

“I saw what Warm was writing in the sand up there, before.” Charlie sketched it in the air with a finger. Water ran down his hand into his sleeve. “W and M, over and over.” 

Morris felt his face heat. “The insignia for our company.” 

“Sure, Morris.” Charlie bared his teeth in a grin; Morris supposed it was probably _intended_ to be friendly. Nevertheless, it was a detente, of sorts, and it persisted through the rest of the day and well into the evening. 

*

In the moonlight, the surface of the pool they had created gleamed like a looking-glass, at least until Morris waded into it. Warm stood atop the dam with a long stick in his right hand, directing Charlie and Eli to empty their buckets of the formula and then wait while he and Morris agitated the chemical waters. Morris gazed up at him while he stirred, too, marveling at the alert concentration in his eyes and awaiting the delight that would illuminate his face when the gold shone forth from the riverbed once more—

—and then Warm stopped stirring, pain contorting his fine features, and Morris saw that he had bled through the dressing again. 

“Hermann, come down from there,” he called, and began splashing—gingerly—back out to the shore. 

“What’s going on, Morris?” Eli said. He had his pan and a shovel in hand, but he looked to Warm coming off of the dam with a frown. 

“Nothing to worry about. Go on ahead and pull without us, I’ll take a turn later.” Morris clapped Eli on the shoulder. 

Charlie said, “Or we’ll just keep your share.”

“As you like,” Morris replied, absently; Warm had pulled his sling free and was cradling his arm in discomfort, and Morris beckoned him to their tent to look at it. 

“I know I’ve overexerted myself,” Warm said, as Morris unwound the bloodied bandage. “But this might have been my last chance to see my invention in action for a long while, and I—” He hissed through his teeth as his injury was exposed to the air. 

“Hold still,” Morris said, gently. Warm nodded, and turned his face away. Morris did not like the tense unhappy set of his shoulders; in hopes of distracting Warm as he worked, he asked, “You don’t hope to coax Eli and Charlie into coming to Dallas, do you?” 

Warm looked up at him. “Why, Morris, have you gone and made friends with our erstwhile enemies?” 

“No more so than you,” Morris said, and gestured for Warm to lift his arm so he could replace the sling. “Spending all afternoon with Eli?”

Warm gave him a small smile. “He was sad, and not only because of his horse.” He reached out and clasped Morris’s arm with his right hand, as if he meant to draw him close; Morris let himself be pulled as inexorably as the current. “But otherwise, today’s turned out perfectly all right, don’t you think?” 

That was when Charlie screamed. 

Morris burst out of the tent, Warm on his heels. 

He could not make sense of what he saw at first, too dazzled by the veritable galaxy the river had become. Then he recognized an entire cask upended and floating in the water, and above that, Eli struggling to haul Charlie off of the dam while he screamed and cried. 

Morris ran to help, and when he looked back he saw Warm’s face utterly bleak and pale in the moonlight, and he knew it was not all right; it was a disaster. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my chaptered fic, plot always wants to kick in around the third chapter... XD
> 
> >_< Sorry about the long wait, dear readers! Had to finish up a big project and keep plugging away at the other one. I'm not quite sure if I'm going to alternate between this one and _share my secrets with you_ again, since I'm almost on track to have this story synced with the calendar, but it also depends on the aforementioned big project...so stay tuned (or subscribed, lol), I guess! Thanks for reading :)
> 
> Thanks to morag for the tireless support :D


	4. July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the new tags.

On the trail again, traveling north slowly and painstakingly for the sake of the various injuries among their unhappy band, Warm had more than enough time to contemplate how his project, which had finally seemed full of promise when Morris had joined him in the spirit of honesty and true friendship, had turned utterly disastrous instead. 

Eli had not blamed Warm for ruining Charlie’s hand, saying over and over that it was an accident, even as Charlie wept and cursed at each of them in turn. Warm had sat with Eli on the sand holding Charlie fast so that Morris could pour bucketfuls of clean water on his arm, but there was little else any of them could do once they were all soaked through, except make plans to leave for a doctor in the morning. 

Warm thought he could have—he _should_ have—better explained the chemical principles and properties of the formula to Charlie and more closely shown him the examples of his and Morris's own red and blistering flesh. He had said as much to Morris while they packed. Morris had stopped bustling about like a moth in the lamplight, looked deep into Warm’s eyes and shook his head firmly, and it was plain that he thought Charlie was solely to blame without having to speak a damning word. 

But it went beyond the damage to Charlie’s hand, or to his and Morris’s slowly healing legs. Even Warm’s own bullet wound and the dead men at Folsom Lake were not the real beginnings of his failure. No—he had set them on this path much longer ago than that, when he had approached the Commodore with a box of dirt, scarcely enough formula to fill a tin mug, and the thrill of scientific discovery—all blinding him to the depths of the Commodore's avarice until it was nearly too late. The reality and gravity of his situation had swiftly sunk in after that encounter, but Warm felt that something of that naive arrogance must have returned, once Morris had paved the way to go forward together. 

He had believed it to be happiness, a joyful uncomplicated connection between two minds, two bodies. He had even begun to imagine how they might live together in Dallas; what peace and purpose Morris might find there with him, turning his uncommon intellect and genuine interest in the human condition towards bettering it. Or, he thought maybe Morris would become their chronicler, so that the precepts of their new society could be shared with peers still to arrive. 

Warm wondered if he had been too caught up in those fantasies to recall himself to practicality. He had certainly been unwary of threats like Mayfield and her men, and later, perhaps allowed the excitement of shared revelation overwhelm the safeguards he had meant for them to take in his endeavor. 

Of course, there was also the matter of his invention itself, for on the morning they left the river behind, Warm had seen the horror his formula had wrought, though Morris tried to stop him going down to the water at all. Fat beavers made sad furry islands in the shallows, and bloated, upturned fish drifted along the shore, their silver-white bellies mottled with red. Sick at heart, Warm had wanted to walk downstream, to observe how far the killing effect had spread, but Morris had caught him, and held him while he retched and gasped for breath, as though he were one of the poor fish drowning in air. 

He had found himself in Morris's arms with increasing frequency after that as they traveled. Ever since the night at the relay station when Warm had first shared his bed, Morris’s long limbs had an inadvertent and rather endearing tendency to become entwined with his own, but now the touch of Morris’s hand on his shoulder or at his hip, under the blankets, was fully deliberate. It was as if Morris was afraid Warm would come untethered and slip from his grasp, pulled away by some unseen current. 

He did not know how to reassure Morris. 

To claim he was all right would be an obvious lie. Where once he would have studied the scene and sky aloud as they rode, amusing and baffling Morris by turns, now his silences dragged out too long. At night he had taken to drawing the blankets over his face again, for the stars streaming overhead reminded him too much of the gold in the dark depths of the river. 

Sleep did not come easily, either; his bleak guilty thoughts and the persistent pain of his arm held it off. He had freely given back the rest of the morphine to Charlie, and kept their bottle of whiskey only to keep his wound clean rather than to dull his senses. Eli had had to tie Charlie onto his horse two days running to keep him from tumbling off in his drugged stupor, and Warm was not eager to have the same done to him if he should fall unconscious from lack of rest. But encamped on a rocky bluff several miles safely distant from Mayfield, he once again lay awake, listening to the cricket-song and Eli’s faint snoring and trying to find a reasonable position for his sling. 

Sprawled beside him, Morris was a solid familiar weight, the scents of trail dust and cigar smoke overlaying his natural odor, and his hand rested slack in the folds of Warm’s shirt. Warm carefully placed his own right hand atop it, tracing over the knuckles with his thumb. Morris did not stir. 

Despite the comfort of Morris’s presence and the evidence of his ongoing concern and care, even unconscious, Warm was beginning to feel smothered beneath the blankets. The night air should have been cool enough that the furnace of Morris’s body was welcome, but instead Warm grew unpleasantly overheated, and even exposing his face again did not help. 

He gently lifted Morris’s hand, drew aside the edge of the blanket, and slipped out, thinking he would walk a little until he felt better. The moon waxed towards full, probably in just over another week's time, so there was plenty of light to see by, though he did not plan to go very far in any case; they had heard coyotes at dusk. His wanderings took him through the bedraggled and tenacious juniper trees to the edge of the bluff, where he sat down to gaze at the broad black ribbon of the Sacramento River some hundred yards to the north. 

It was a sign of how much had changed, that his thoughts did not immediately go to how he would inspect the rocks along the riverbank for the presence of gold, or to observing what creatures might come down to drink in the safety of darkness. Instead, he felt miserably dull, so much so that he failed to notice the footsteps crunching on loose stone behind him until Morris—for there was no one else it could be—was nearly upon him. 

“John,” he said, without turning. 

“Are you in pain?” Morris asked. 

“Only a little hot.”

“Feverish?” Morris came closer, and Warm was compelled to look up at him, at the moonlight casting stark shadows on his face, and he felt a pang of regret that he had caused Morris to wake from his own much needed slumber. “Hermann, you _must_ tell me if you are—”

Warm shook his head. “I’m in no danger of infection, not with you looking after me as you have. It was just hot under the blankets, and I couldn't seem to sleep.”

“I see.” Morris cast a glance up to the stars. “Shall I stay with you, here, until you are ready to go back?” 

“If you want,” Warm answered, and Morris promptly settled beside him on the rocky ground with a soft sigh. 

Their knees touched, but that was all. A strange inertia had seized Warm’s body, and though part of him desired to return to the blankets and have Morris’s hands come to rest comfortingly upon him, he could not summon the will to move, nor could he find the words to ask for Morris's embrace. He watched the river’s starlit ripples vanish into the black current, its susurration oddly hushed. 

“I feel that you are very far away,” Morris said, quietly, after enough time had elapsed that the moon had visibly descended a few degrees towards the distant invisible horizon. “Is there anything I might do, to bring you back to—to me?” 

Warm bit his lip, and rubbed his face with his right hand so Morris would not see that his eyes watered. “I don’t know,” he murmured, hoarsely, and then, “I am sorry, John. I haven’t been a good companion to you, lately.” 

“Whatever do you mean?” Morris nudged his knee. “If you think I expected us to be _intimate_ , while you are injured—” 

“No—no, you are a true gentleman, and I—” Warm caught the faint teasing rill in Morris's voice, and he stopped, and tried to smile a little at Morris before sinking his head into his hand. “I can’t seem to think of anything except how my experiment has failed,” he admitted. “How I wrecked our prospects.” 

“How _you_ wrecked—Hermann, the science was sound, and even if we never set foot on our claim again, we have more than enough money to travel to Dallas,” Morris said, confidently. “After we see Eli and Charlie safely to the doctor in Jacksonville, at any rate.” 

A chill trembled through Warm, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. He leaned away. “I can’t go to Dallas.” 

“Why not?” 

“I was _wrong._ ” The disconsolate cry broke from Warm’s lips, flat in the stifling sullen air. “I thought I could overcome mankind’s greed with my _principles_ , and look how many men _still_ lie dead behind me. Look what I’ve—look at _Charlie._ It’s impossible to turn a destructive force to productive ends. I believed otherwise, but the evidence is clear.” He gestured in the direction of the camp. “I poisoned a _river_. I can’t go to Dallas. Not with this blood on my hands.” 

Morris was silent, though Warm could hear his breath coming faster and felt the sudden stiffening of his posture. He went on. 

“I decried the violence of modern society, but I am no better than any—”

“Yes, you _are_ ,” Morris said, firmly. 

“John—”

“How many men do you know who would have stopped me from killing the very assassins hunting us? Who would have _insisted_ on traveling with those same criminals to Jacksonville, when we could have gone to Sacramento and left them to their own devices?” 

“That doesn’t call to account the facts, the _circumstances_ of what I’ve wrought—”

“ _Hermann_. If you can forgive _me_ , then by God, you can forgive yourself.” Morris caught at Warm’s shoulder, entreating him to look up; in the darkness it was impossible to see the blue of his eyes or the set of his mouth, but his ardent conviction was plain. “The people you have spoken of, in Dallas. If they are one-tenth as good-hearted as you, they will understand you acted without malice aforethought.” 

His voice took on a recitative lilt. “‘Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.’” He bent his head close and added, “Not that your concerns are _nonsense_ , of course, only ill-founded. Will you try to believe that?”

“You continue to be too kind to me,” Warm said, with another weary sigh. 

Morris pressed his lips to Warm’s temple before he spoke. “I am sorry for your melancholy, my dear friend, and—and I promise there is nothing I would not do, to see your happiness renewed.” 

Warm’s despondency was far from abated, but he laid his head on Morris's shoulder, and felt some of the strain dissipate from Morris's bearing at the gesture. “If only it was as simple as convincing you to take me to bed,” Warm murmured. 

Morris huffed a laugh into his hair and gingerly navigated the sling to settle his arm around Warm. “When you are well.” 

They lingered for some time nestled together, looking north across the river. Warm tried to turn his thoughts from their sad trajectory: he had in Morris a devoted friend, who _had_ set aside his duty to the Commodore's cruel desires in order to champion his cause. Who had seen the ebbs and flows of his despair and pain and fear, and time after time sought to buoy him up. 

Consoled thus by the reminders of Morris’s steadfastness, even if he had no idea how they were to proceed from this point forward, Warm took a breath, and another, slowly. A little breeze stirred the junipers growing sideways and precarious from the rocky bluff, carrying with it the warm dry scent of midsummer. Morris’s hand had fallen to caressing the uninjured part of his arm in strokes that grew more and more languid, and his head drooped somewhat to his chest. 

“Are you falling asleep?” Warm whispered. 

Morris gave a full-body jerk, and blinked at him in mild confusion, as if he had forgotten they were not cosily tucked into the blankets. “I suppose I was.” He passed his hand over his face, not entirely concealing a yawn. “And you?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, I had an idea that might help,” Morris said, getting to his feet and reaching his hand down to help Warm up. “Shall I read some of Emerson to you? Or recite else what I can recall, rather. I hesitate to light a lantern at this hour.”

Warm lifted their interlaced hands so he could press a kiss to Morris's fingers. “You won't be able to put me to sleep in that manner, John—I think I would _enjoy_ that.”

“Then I will have to be as dull and boring as the most grey-headed lecturers at Hamilton,” Morris said, lightly. He gave Warm's hand a tug, and they walked back in the direction of their campsite. 

When they returned, Charlie and Eli were thankfully still sound asleep, undisturbed by their midnight excursion. Warm glanced guiltily at Charlie as he arranged himself in their little nest—Charlie’s hand lay atop his chest, pale and horrible—but he did not pull the topmost blanket over his face. Morris's gaze was still upon him, moonlight caught in the curve of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. 

> “A moody child—”

Warm could not suppress a startled snort. “John,” he protested. 

Morris laughed softly. “I know what I’m about, Hermann. Close your eyes and listen.” 

Warm leaned his head back on the flattened pillow and did as he was bade, and Morris whispered to him in the dark. 

> “A moody child and wildly wise  
>  Pursued the game with joyful eyes,  
>  Which chose, like meteors, their way,  
>  And rived the dark with private ray:  
>  They overleapt the horizon’s edge,  
>  Searched with Apollo’s privilege;  
>  Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,  
>  Saw the dance of nature forward far;  
>  Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,  
>  Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.”  
> 

“Oh, John,” Warm murmured, drowsily. He felt about for Morris's hand again, and held onto it with both of his own. 

Morris’s lips brushed Warm’s cheek, and the last thing he heard before sleep finally carried him away like a swift river was, “Try and rest, dear heart.” 

*

The form of Morris’s assistance took on the nature of a ritual over the following nights, although he did not attempt to recite any more of the essay that followed Emerson’s poem from memory. He lay on his back, partially propped up on his bag, and held the well-worn volume at an angle so that the flickering fire shone on its pages. Warm curled against Morris’s side, head pillowed on his broad chest, and listened to his heart beating out the meter of Emerson’s words until he fell asleep. 

Eli commented on it when they were only a day or two away from reaching Jacksonville and the doctor he and Charlie knew there. At dinner, he nodded to the book resting atop Morris’s bag. “What is that you’ve been whispering about at night?” 

“It’s nothing, only a practice to quiet the mind before bed,” Morris said. “Has it been keeping you up?” 

“No,” Eli said. He drank some tea out of his dented mug—they had run out of coffee the previous day—and his eyes were curious, over the rim of it. 

“It’s one of those things you think we’re not smart enough to get,” Charlie slurred, peering at them through slitted eyelids from where he slumped under a tree. 

Warm was surprised; he’d thought Charlie completely dead to the world from the morphine or drink or a combination of the two. Eli—and Warm, at first—had tried daily to coax him to eat, or find ways to give him comfort, but he snarled and snapped at his brother until the pain of his ruined hand overwhelmed him or the drug took its anesthetic effect. Whether out of resentment or regret, he had simply ignored Warm altogether. 

Morris’s eyebrows lifted, and he took up the book and turned its pages until he found the passage he must have left off at, the night before, and read aloud: 

> “‘Things more excellent than every image,’ says Jamblichus, ‘are expressed through images.’ Things admit of being used as symbols, because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in every part. Every line we can draw in the sand, has expression; and there is no body without its spirit of genius.”

He looked across the fire at Charlie, a hint of challenge in his gaze that had not touched the eloquence of his speech. 

“‘Every line we can draw in the sand,’ huh,” Charlie mumbled, and let his head fall back. He waved his remaining good hand in the air. “Go on, then, _Maurice,_ I’m listening.” 

Morris cast a skeptical look at Warm. He shrugged, grateful the lengthening shadows hid the flush that had risen into his face at Charlie's comment; the letters he had scratched in the sand by the river were long washed away, but the sentiments behind them, etched into his very soul, were deeper than he had yet shared aloud—

“There is more, right?“ Eli asked. 

“Yes, quite a bit,” Morris answered, one of his lovely surprised smiles stealing across his face in the fading sunset. He read on, as Eli got up and began tidying, mindful of the unmusical clanking of tin mugs and plates together; as Warm laid out their blankets and settled himself in them, tucking his good hand behind his head while he gazed up at the stars emerging one by one. He thought Charlie must be doing the same as he was, letting the ideas in their eloquent cadence distract him from pain and harsh reality, all of their sad party bound up in Morris's spell. 

If so, it was a better spell than the curse he had laid upon them with his prospecting formula. 

*

The spell lasted until they reached Jacksonville and Dr. Crane took one look at Charlie's blackened forearm and pronounced that it had to come off, almost to the elbow. There was some discussion of whether Charlie should be allowed to drink any more alcohol prior to the operation, ended when Crane gave him a strong dose of laudanum and pretended it was mixed with the remainder of the bottle of whiskey. 

Warm did not shirk his responsibility, grimly holding Charlie down at the shoulder on the surgeon's table with his own remaining free hand as Eli wept and braced the dead arm for Crane to cut. Morris had tried to help, but at the first touch of saw to skin, went utterly white under his beard. Crane ordered him out before he fainted or vomited on the patient, and his shadow had lingered on the porch for scant minutes before he took himself farther afield. 

The surgery was bloody and grey and terrible, and at the end of it Eli stood staring down into the bucket where he had placed Charlie’s arm. Warm took a breath and immediately regretted it, for the smell of rot and sawn-through bone turned the air fetid and nauseating, but he was not about to leave Eli alone. 

“You should have Crane examine your bullet wound,” Eli said, without looking up. “So you don’t end up like Charlie.” 

“I’m all right.” 

“Morris takes good care of you.” 

“As you do for Charlie,” Warm said. 

“When he lets me.” 

Warm fought down the urge to gag, swallowing repeatedly before he replied, “He’ll have to, now.” 

Eli went to the wash basin to clean his hands. “I was going to quit this foul business, after.” He did not elaborate about after _what,_ but he didn’t need to; Warm felt the stinging specter of a blow across his cheek and glanced involuntarily out the window in the direction of Smith’s boarding-house. “I wanted to go home.”

The notion of a _home_ had only been the dream of Dallas for so long that Warm was caught off-guard, and he racked his mind for what little he knew of Eli and Charlie’s history. “Oregon City?” he ventured. 

Eli shook his head. “We had a shack there, but I think I mean our mother’s house.” He ran his dripping hand across his face, and the droplets that fell were tinged with red. “I’m going to rest here a while and wait for Charlie to wake up. Go have Crane take a look at your arm.” 

Warm went. 

The good doctor thought Morris had done a decent job of tending to him, and kept whatever speculation he had about the circumstances that led to the men in his parlor to himself. While he rebandaged his arm, Warm asked a little after Crane’s family, for he spied a pair of small boots by the door, and a doll on the kitchen table at which he was seated—and Crane stilled, a glint of fear in his eyes. 

Warm pulled a face. Of course Crane would think it a threat; he appeared to be one of the Sisters’ nefarious compatriots. “Ah. None of _them_ are the Commodore’s men, not any longer, and I—” He gave Crane a wan smile. “I was a chemist.”

Crane's expression shifted, though he was no less anxious. “Are you in danger from them, sir?” he whispered.

Warm shook his head. “Not any longer,” he repeated. His brow furrowed. “Are—are _you?_ I will have a word with Eli—”

“No, sir. Eli’s always done right by us.” Crane seemed to relax. “I have a daughter. Elizabeth, though she prefers to be called Beth, at present.“

“Does she take an interest in your work?” Warm asked. Crane looked puzzled at that, so he clarified, “During my journey on the Trail, I found it often fell to women who were scarcely more than children to attend to medical matters.”

“Birthing and such,” Crane said, nodding. 

“Oh, much more,” Warm said, some of his old progressive spirit returning to animate his words. “A society for the education of women was founded in Boston, did you know that? Although I believe they focus on midwifery, too, and not—” he waved his hand in the direction of Eli and Charlie in the parlor. “Surgery, which might have saved some of the travelers who fell under the wagon wheels or were snake-bitten.”

“Mr. Warm, surely you aren't suggesting my _child_ bear witness to the gruesome task that your other friend fled from?” 

Warm mulled it over. “I’m suggesting that more women should become physicians like yourself,” he said, wondering if he had made a mistake, assuming he could talk to Crane like this. The man was not Morris, after all, familiar with the egalitarian bent of his thoughts. 

Crane tied off the bandage and met his eyes with a curious stare. “Would you have a daughter become a chemist, like you?”

It was impossible to prevent a flinch. “No, but not for the reasons you presume,“ Warm replied. 

They heard footsteps on the porch, then, and a tentative knock, and Morris said through the door, “Is it finished?”

“Yes,” Warm called to him, softly, to keep from disturbing Eli’s nap. 

Morris paused for a moment in the parlor, looking at the sun on Charlie’s waxen visage and Eli with his hat covering his face, and then he came into the kitchen where Warm and Crane sat with his own hat in one hand and an unopened bottle of what looked to be brandy in the other. “I took the liberty of securing rooms for us, and I—”

Warm said, “Not—not at Smith’s, surely?”

Morris gave him an apologetic nod. “There was no other option.” He pressed the bottle of brandy at Crane. “For your services and your discretion.” 

Warm did not particularly like the idea of going back there, but he acknowledged the establishment had beds, at least; they had rarely bothered to set up cots on the return journey north, and it would be good to—“John, are you not going to _pay_ Dr. Crane?”

“Dr. Crane can hardly be discreet if he has to exchange gold dust for coin,” Morris pointed out. He saw the consternation in Warm's expression and added, “But I will see to it that our debts are fully paid, in one fashion or another. Your arm?” 

“Mr. Warm’s arm will recover in time,” Crane said. He waved his hand at Morris, who had located a scrap of paper and was patting down his coat pockets for a pencil. “You needn't write out a warrant, sir, it’s my duty to help men in need.” 

What Morris would have said in return, Warm never knew, for a more frenetic set of footsteps rattled the boards, and a girl of no more than nine or ten skipped into Crane’s house, calling, “Papa?” She carried a lunch pail but no books, and the hem of her dress and the soles of her shoes were muddy. 

“Quiet, Beth, our guests are resting,” Crane said. 

“Papa, there were men asking around about visitors,” Beth said. 

Morris raised his head in alarm, and his hand fell to the butt of his pistol. “Where?”

“At the store. Thomas didn't know about no visitors—” 

“About _any_ visitors—”

“—but I thought someone might’ve come here for Papa to get fixed up, and I was right.” Beth eyed Warm curiously. “You don't look like a Chinaman or an Indian.”

“That’s because I am neither, at least not as you would call it,” Warm replied. “John, what’s the matter?”

“Did they give any names, the men you heard in the general store?” Morris asked. He checked his gun. “Any details of who they’re searching for?”

Beth frowned. “I thought they were looking for sisters, and then I reckoned they must’ve said _visitors_ , ‘cause there’s lots of sisters in town, and it don’t make sense to want _all_ of ‘em even if they are going all over town—”

Morris met Crane’s worried expression; the doctor nodded and went into the parlor. Beth sat down at the table, looking up at Warm and Morris with bright-eyed bafflement. 

“John,” Warm tried, again, as Crane roused Eli from his nap. 

“I shouldn’t have gone out,” Morris muttered. “The man Smith will have given us all away.” Someone shouted Eli’s name in the street and then Charlie’s, in a taunting lilt, and Morris added, “Almost certainly more of the Commodore’s men, I’m afraid.” 

“It’s Rex,” Eli said, his eyes hard, with a grim glint to them. “Is there a back door to this place?” Crane pointed the way, and Eli nodded, gesturing at Morris and Warm meaningfully, and turned back into the parlor for Charlie. 

“Rex?” Warm asked, when Morris cursed under his breath. 

“The Commodore’s third or fourth-best man,” Morris said. “Hermann, we _must_ leave, if Rex has any inkling that _you_ are here.” Warm had gotten to his feet, but Morris’s words were a revelation that rooted him to the spot; his damned _formula_ was going to doom them all. 

Crane hurried back into the kitchen and scooped Beth up out of her chair as though she was a much smaller girl. “Gentlemen, we are in grave danger—”

“Do I have to come in there and get you?” came from outside, closer now. 

Warm shuddered. He looked up at the dread in Morris’s blue eyes and down at the gun in Morris’s trembling hand, and he knew what he must do to protect his friend. How he could put an end to the senseless destruction that had shadowed his trail since the very beginning. 

“No, I’m coming out,” Eli shouted. 

“First you toss your guns, then come out with your hands up,” followed the drawled instructions, and Warm’s eyes widened as he heard the unmistakable thump of Eli’s gun in its holster hitting the floorboards. “Good. Now come on out and talk.” 

“Eli,” Warm’s voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. Then, louder, “Eli, _wait—_ ”

Morris flung his hand out to grab him, but Warm was for once the quicker, and he bolted from the kitchen and across the parlor, making for the open door just as Eli stepped onto the porch. 

Something struck him with all the force of a gunshot—Morris, barrelling into him and sending them both crashing to the floor with a loud crack—

— _no_ , the crack came from outside, the first in a volley of gunfire; the large window shattered inwards in a shower of shards. On the table, Charlie, glassy-eyed, struggled to raise the stump of his arm, as though he saw a gun in his missing hand—

“I can put a stop to this, John, let me up!” Warm cried, squirming painfully to no avail. Morris had wrestled him fully pinned and prone, and lay across him with his gun aimed at the door. “I have to make them see reason!”

“Have you _lost your mind?” M_ orris hissed, huddling and pressing his face into Warm’s back; above them, bullets smashed bottles on Crane’s shelves, their fumes bitter in the air. His breath panted hot on Warm’s skin through the layers of his shirts as Warm fought to throw him off. “Stay down, dammit, you can’t, Hermann, you _can't_ , _listen_ —”

The guns fell silent, and all Warm could hear were Charlie’s half-sobbing breaths, the trickle of medicines spilling from the destruction on the opposite side of the parlor. Morris stood and pulled Warm to his feet, out of the line of sight of the door, grimacing apologetically as Warm clutched at his bad shoulder. 

“You hit me again,” Warm said, faintly. 

“I merely shoved you onto the floor,” Morris replied, with a touch of forced levity; his eyes were shadowed with fear. He glanced towards where Crane and his daughter crouched in the kitchen. “I apologize for the violence I have done you, but we ought to—”

There was a voice in the street, and then a solitary gunshot. 

_“_ Outthe back with them, Hermann, quickly,”Morris said, and his voice nearly cracked on the last word. He raised his gun. 

Warm shook his head. Through the door, sunlight shone on Morris’s face in the manner as the morning they had left this same town together on that clear but uncertain dawn. They would not run again. 

A shadow fell across them, and Morris wheeled and raised his gun—

“ _Christ_ , Morris,” Eli exclaimed. “I thought we were beyond _us_ trying to kill each other?”

“Eli,” Morris said, breathing heavily, and actually reached out to clap him on the shoulder.

Warm said, “You’re all right?” Only a single small blot of red had begun to stain Eli’s shirt sleeve; he looked otherwise completely unscathed. 

Eli nodded, and the corner of his mouth quirked up, but only just, as his gaze went past them to his brother. 

“Fucking Rex,” Charlie said, and lay back down. 

Crane cast a resigned look at the glass shards and splinters of wood strewn about his parlor. “Mr. Morris, I will take that gold dust now,” he said, wryly. 

Warm gave him an entire nugget. 

Once more confident of their safety with the latest set of pursuers lying dead in the street—and certain that Eli kept a weather eye on Warm—Morris went out to make friends with the Jacksonville sheriff and have the bodies dealt with. Warm watched him cross the dusty street, his hat brim tugged low to shield his face, and resolutely turned his attention to cleaning up Crane’s house, and his thoughts towards how he might more successfully confront— 

“Didn’t see you running out with a gun in your hand,” Charlie mumbled. He did not budge from the table while Warm and Eli swept around him, his eyes darting fitfully; the pain of his lost arm seemed to keep him conscious. “Were you gonna try to talk sense into Rex?”

Warm gestured at the wreckage. “Wouldn’t it have been better if I had? Aren’t you—both of you—tired of this killing? _I_ don’t want any more of it, not on account of me and my formula _._ ”

Eli’s brow knitted. He leaned on his broom and looked to his brother, and then through the dust and light to Warm. “What are you saying, Hermann?” 

“More of the Commodore’s men will be after us,” Warm said. “Am I right? And with Charlie out of commission, and Morris and I not much use in your line of work, then it falls to Eli to stop them.” 

“That’s all right, I’ll deal with them as they come,” Eli said, and after what he had done, it was not false modesty behind his words. 

“But Eli, my point is that I think I can prevent any more people from having to die, by your hand or anyone else’s.”

“By _talking_ to them,” Charlie said, derisively. He managed to raise himself into a hunched posture. “Was that how you won Morris ‘round? I thought there was something else you did with your—”

“Charlie,“ Eli snapped. 

“—mouth,” Charlie finished. 

“ _Charlie.”_

Warm was mostly unperturbed; he thought Charlie speaking to him again, even in so crass a fashion, was a good sign that he would recover. “Not precisely,” he said. “My plan is to go straight to the Commodore himself, explain what has become of the formula, and that he shouldn’t seek retribution against you gentlemen, or—or Morris.” 

Charlie laughed; he raised his right arm as if he meant to point mockingly at Warm, but had forgotten about its shortened end. “You think, that after sending us and Rex and whoever else is dead out there after you, you can just ride on back to Oregon City, knock on the Commodore’s door and _explain?_ ”

“He’ll kill you,” Eli said, flatly. “The things we were supposed to do to you—he’ll torture you himself, for the pains you made him go to. And then he will have the formula, and he won’t have any compunctions about who gets hurt using it.” 

“Compunctions?” Charlie muttered, as Warm winced. 

Eli ignored him. “Me and Charlie will handle the Commodore.” 

“We will?”

“We already talked about it, remember?” 

Charlie shrugged and reclined on his left elbow. His face was pinched, and there was once more a vacant glassiness to his eyes. “I guess.” He drank some more laudanum. 

“It’s better this way,” Eli said to Warm’s unhappy expression. “You and Morris go on somewhere safe together. That—that’s the important thing.” A note of wistfulness crept into his voice. “Not everyone gets to have that.” 

“I want that for you, too, Eli,” Warm said. 

Eli’s answering smile was kind. “It’s okay.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Charlie, who had fallen unconscious again, the bandaged stump of his arm lying across his chest. “I got him.” 

*

They passed one last night all together in Jacksonville. 

Morris had managed to get a different room than the one he had captured Warm in, with a single bed large enough for the both of them. He smiled, a little, to see Warm’s relieved reaction to it, but he said, “You will stay?I won’t need to find a way to keep you from leaving with Eli and Charlie in the morning?” 

Warm huffed a weak laugh and sat down on the edge of the bed, glancing around at the familiar faded and peeling wallpaper, the soot-stained glass on the lamps. “You don’t need to resort to bondage to keep me here. I’ll stay.” He took his hat off to look up at Morris. “But John, I don’t—I _don’t_ have any idea what comes after that. Not Dallas, and I’m not certain San Francisco or Sacramento would be any better—”

Morris shook his head. “With everything that has happened, you don’t have to know right away. And we are both tired; let us rest a while, and then we shall see what new adventures await?” 

Warm reached out and caught his hand. “All right,“ he said. 

A knock and a voice at the door kept him from saying how grateful he was that _Morris_ was going to stay, that he would not have to face the uncaring world alone. Though it was only Eli, asking if they would come and share a drink with him. Morris said he would, and looked inquiringly to Warm. 

“I think I'll turn in,” Warm said, and found it in himself to add, lightly: “I won’t hold you at gunpoint when you come back.”

The corner of Morris’s mouth twitched. “I would appreciate that.” He clapped his hat to his chest and made a gentlemanly half-bow to Warm before turning to join Eli in the corridor. 

Warm’s smile faded as the door shut behind him. He resigned himself to postponing a much-desired bath until the morning, as removing his shirt and unlacing his boots was enough trouble with only one hand free and without Morris’s assistance, and went to the washbasin to splash some water on his face. And then, not much liking the hollow-eyed look of his own reflection in the glass, he sat back down on the bed morosely, fingers tracing the stitches of the worn soft quilt. 

He felt a completely different sort of despair than he had two months prior, seated in much the same place. He had no fear for his life now, nor had such a concern even crossed his mind when he had attempted to go out to Rex. But a similar kind of anguish about the world was setting in; it seemed there could be no end to the violence _but_ violence, and he was once more powerless to—

Another knock at the door jarred him out of his thoughts. 

“Yes?”

“Warm?” 

It was Charlie. Warm got up and opened the door to him. His face was still worryingly pale, but his eyes were alert, if unusually furtive, and he was barefoot, as if he had snuck from his sickbed. 

Warm frowned. “Charlie, you ought to be resting.”

Charlie shook his head. “Can’t seem to get to sleep without Morris reading that fancy poetry, and Eli’s making me ration the morphine. Can I—”

“Of course, come in,” Warm said. Charlie took the room’s sole chair, glancing around the room in the assessing way he had, and Warm shut the door, offering gently, “Would you like me to read, instead?”

“No.” Charlie hesitated, looking down at Morris’s bags on the floor. “D’you remember the bit from a couple nights ago? About Vulcan, or whoever. Some fucking crippled Greek god.” 

Warm nodded, and did not bother to correct him on the provenance of Vulcan, as Morris would have. His memory of the rest was somewhat vague, but he thought he recalled Emerson’s point well enough. 

“Do you think that's true? Do you think some part of me can be—I don't know, _exuberant_ sounded stupid, but—”

“Are you asking me if I think you have it in you to be a better man because I made you lose your hand?”

“Something like that.” Charlie lifted his head, and his gaze was sadder and yet more piercing than Warm had ever seen it before. “Thought I might ask you to copy that out for me.”

Warm laughed; he couldn’t help it, even though Charlie immediately looked murderous when affronted. He indicated his sling. “Charlie, has it somehow escaped your notice that I am left-handed?”

“I saw you writing in the sand!” 

“In a very poor hand, with a _stick_. Perhaps you could commit the passage to memory?” Warm hefted Morris’s bag onto the bed and began to rifle through it.

“Morris doesn’t care that you go through his things?”

Warm huffed a laugh again. “Oh, he cared very much when I read his journal and stole his handcuffs,” he said. “Things are different now.”

“Right,” Charlie said. “You fucking him and all.”

Warm turned with the book in his hand, and studied Charlie’s face; the yellow glow of the lamplight seemed almost to pass through him, like his sallow skin was made of oilcloth. “Does that bother you?”

“What?” Charlie furrowed his brow. 

“Morris and I,” Warm said. “It didn’t occur to me that it would, but that’s twice now you’ve said something about our relations.” He glanced down at the bed, thoughtfully. “We _haven’t_ , not since I was shot, so it can’t have been that we have disturbed you in—in a literal sense.”

“Jesus, Warm, I didn’t need to know that—”

“Is it that we are two men, or is it because it’s John?” 

Charlie stared at him for a long moment in open-mouthed astonishment, and then he gave his head a brief shake. “I don’t care that it’s Morris, and I don’t care that it’s you _and_ Morris. Forget I said anything. Let me see the book, all right?”

Warm remained unconvinced, but there had been no need to be on his guard from Charlie for weeks now, and once he and Eli left, his opinion would matter even less. He quickly found the page and handed the book over. 

Charlie’s lips moved silently for a few minutes, and then, evidently satisfied that he had committed the words to memory, he pressed the book into Warm’s hand and said, “You really would have tried to get Rex or the Commodore not to kill us, huh.” 

Warm shrugged. “I told Eli once that it’s better, facing up to things, and it is--none of _this_ would have happened if I had, at the start.” 

“Appreciate the thought, but it’s _better_ you leave these types of confrontations to the professionals.” Charlie got to his feet; swayed alarmingly as he took a step towards the door, but waved Warm off when he moved to steady him. “Besides, Morris is goddamn insufferable as it is, without you going and getting yourself killed on our behalf.” 

Although Warm had only intended to bid him goodnight at the door, a strange admixture of affection and sorrow made him say, instead, “Thank you, Charlie, and I—I am sorry. About everything.”

“Yeah, well,” Charlie said. An imitation of his old insouciant grin flickered across his face, turned to a grimace in the dancing lamplight. “Good night, Warm.” 

*

The Sisters were gone in the morning without further farewell. Warm had not been awake for their departure, but he considered that they knew his mind, and beyond disagreement, there was little more he could contribute to their plan to deal with the Commodore. Morris confirmed as much, over breakfast, and said that Eli would send word when it was done and they were safe. 

Warm did not much like waiting, after. Days passed, and he could not determine what to do with himself while his injured arm hampered him. He was no help with repairs at Crane’s, and he could no longer take the odd jobs he had sought when money was scarce on his travels. Morris put forth some effort in those respects, minded their horses, wrote letters to his solicitor, and dealt with Smith and Crane and the sheriff, and—

—and Warm merely sat on the porch of the boarding-house watching people go about their day: women carrying cloth-covered baskets in and out of stores, the Chinese men carefully touching up the paint on their window panes to advertise their laundry business, the occasional wagon passing through with dusty children and dogs running alongside. He had thought that observing others might spur his weary mind once more to action, to devise _something_ to improve their lot or the whole of Jacksonville society, such as it was, but instead the bustle of ordinary life seemed only to remind him of what he had lost and could not hope to regain. 

At night, he lay in bed half-listening to Morris read Emerson aloud, listless and adrift, until one evening, when Morris set the book aside and said, “Hermann, I would like to ask your opinion on something.”

“Certainly,” Warm replied, sleepily, and turned over to look up at him. 

“I have been making inquiries about a house,” Morris said. His blue eyes were fixed upon Warm, and shone with a feeling the drowsy state of Warm’s mind did not permit him to fully understand. 

“Where?”

“Just west of town. The previous landowner was—taken by the gold rush and sold his acreage to the bank. I—I am thinking of purchasing it.” 

“A house.” 

Morris nodded. “As well as an orchard, though I must confess I don’t know the first thing about horticulture. The man at the bank told me the land has good drainage, whatever that means.”

Warm stared at him. 

“It’s only an idea I had,” Morris said, unusually hesitant. “Unless you would rather go to Dallas after all?”

“If I— _what?”_

Morris’s face reddened. “I am thinking of purchasing a house, and I would like it very much if you were to come and live with me there. I have no intention of asking you to give up your dream; it was—is—a worthy ambition, but I would see you _happy_ , Hermann, not closeted here waiting for word that may never come.”

Warm put his hand atop Morris’s on the quilt and threaded their fingers together, feeling as though a dam was about to crack inside him, and long-held sentiment about to spill through. But he said, “John, this is far too generous a gift—“

“It is not meant as one _,”_ Morris said, quickly. “I had planned on buying land for myself, eventually, and this is as good a place and time as any. There—there is a creek running through the property, so we would not have to dig a well, and the horses could roam about freely—” He broke off, but his gaze held fast; this was no passing fancy, and Warm wondered for a second whether he had discussed it with Eli before he left, as part of the plan to secure their safety. 

“It’s good of you to think of the horses,” Warm said, haltingly. 

“In a few months’ time, the trees will be laden with more apples than they can eat.” 

“Is this to be our new adventure, then?” 

“If you will come and be my good companion,” Morris said, his fingers tightening about Warm’s. 

Warm nodded his agreement, and found it in himself to offer a fond, tentative smile. Morris turned to take him in his arms and kissed him with the fervor of pent-up anticipation finally relieved, and Warm determined that he _would_ try harder to let go of all his old nonsense, if only for Morris’s sake, for he had finally recognized the sweet shining light in his eyes as that of _hope._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Well._ Sorry about the inadvertent two-month break on this one (and the other WIP, if you're following that!) Thank you, dear readers, for your patience while I finished my dissertation and became Dr. Josie, and for sticking with the story. :) I'm really excited to get to August, 1851! 
> 
> Thanks also to morag for the beta, and for allowing me to send her this chapter a hundred words at a time in the middle of the night when I really should have put my phone down and gone to sleep!!
> 
> The bits Morris reads to Warm are from Ralph Waldo Emerson's [The Poet.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69389/from-the-poet) More of that to come, too ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, it's another one of these, except more closely aligned with the film...at least at first, anyway. :)
> 
> Thanks to morag for wrangling the pants!! <3


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